A call from a local farmer late last week indicated an NJ DEP inspector had stopped by to ‘survey’ water use and had asked to inspect his irrigation records. The call was to say, “Thank you!” for having given him earlier in the year an irrigation pump log sheet to use. He had made a couple of copies and given them to his irrigation manager who has been recording the hours pumped every day. The inspector was happy to see that. The farmer was happier. [Read more…]

Roberta Lang is the Ag Resource Specialist at the NJ Dept of Agriculture who arranges the pesticide container recycling program. She reports there was a request at the Hammonton collection last Friday to provide the link to DEP’s pesticide control program where applicators can check the status of their credits and the courses that have been taken. I’ve also had recent calls from growers requesting this and it takes some searching to find it. Below are the instructions Roberta sent. You might want to bookmark whichever site below gets to the information you need most directly.

click on “Pesticides” in the middle of the page (this page has lots of other useful info, like pesticide training and exam dates, beekeeper notification registry, etc, as well as the link to recertification records)

A press release from Purdue University last week was titled Study reveals listeria bacteria can hide inside tissue of romaine lettuce – Common sanitization practices may not be sufficient in killing bacteria. Assistant Professor of Food Science Amanda Deering’s research revealed “that the bacteria could live within lettuce in every stage of the plant growth process, residing inside the plant tissue” [Read more…]

are invited to participate in a survey about their choices to participate or not.

Megan Lehnerd, a PhD student at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition, is conducting a study to learn more about why farmers choose to participate or not participate in these programs. The survey will take between 20 and 30 minutes to complete.